Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Aaron Salzburg - July 24, 1984

What was um, the name of the factory you worked for in Częstochowa, do you remember?

Peltzery. Peltzery.

Peltzery?

Or maybe pronounced Peltzery. On January--sometimes Jan...I think it was January the 15th.

How were the--excuse me--how were the conditions in uh, Częstochowa in comparison to what you experienced in Skarżysko?

Uh, they uh, besides this here uh, beating uh, the conditions uh, weren't, weren't, weren't as bad in Częstochowa as they were in Skarżysko. ??? although we had the same murder, Bartenschlager was there 'til the last minute. I do not know what happened to him. Not long ago I was told--I don't know whether it's true, I was told by a man who was liberated in Częstochowa, and he swears that he had seen Bartenschlager, and they called--the Russian army came in and they pointed out on him--now whether it's true--it's just unbelievable to be true--too good to be true. The Russian officer pushed him over in a heavy Stalin and run him over, now whether it's true--I don't know. I wish it were. The uh, they came in, in a hurry. Sometimes, January the 15th, it was on a Sunday, we were working at the factory.

What year are we talking about now?

1945--January 15, 1945. It was just a day after the Russians started their last attack on the Reich and uh, they rounded us up. When I--when they took me, when they took me from the factory into our the barracks, or the place where we stayed, the, the camp was already empty and uh, an hour later I was--we were packed in uh, uh, in uh, the uh, these uh, freight wagons and shipped out to the west. And uh, we travelled maybe four days, I guess, and we arrived in Buchenwald. When we...

Did you receive--wh--on the journey, did you receive any food?

No. No. No food at all.

Water?

No, nothing. The only thing I remember--we stopped on a station there somewhere in Germany, it was already in Germany. As we traveled down the Polish territory, we uh, came through places and uh, it was beautiful. Uh, that was on the way to Częstochowa. And we stopped uh, we came by and we uh, seen Polish farmers working in the--on the fields and we asked them uh, which direction we were going, and we didn't know--we thought we were going west, and uh, all he could show us was with his hand on our throats--on his throat. That uh, means we're gonna get killed. That was a Polack. Around Germany we stopped on a train station, it was a little opening in that uh, cattle wagon and one of our guys spotted a lady there working on that station, and we plead for water, and her answer was, "Murders do not get water." That was German civilian working on that station. A German soldier, I think he was a guard of ours--an SS man, tried to convince her that these people worked for the Wehrmacht--we worked for the Germans. She still wouldn't give us water, and we didn't got any water untils we got to uh, Buchenwald.